[T-Mobile] How to choose a ROM, and why, anyways?

The stock setup for the S4 is annoying. It takes up too much space and I don't care about many of the extra features using the sensors. So it seems like a good idea to use a custom ROM. But how do I choose one? And will it really be any better?
Will it be worth waiting for the official version of the S4 Google Edition ROM?
Do any ROMs make it possible to pick and choose among other S4-specific features and pre-installed bloatware? Can those apps be pulled over from the stock ROM?

What do you guys think?

Objectives:

a fast phone with a lot of storage
stable, with battery life optimized
wi-fi tethering separate from carrier control
retain the multi-window functionality, works well when modified to include more apps, or are there other approaches to multitasking?

non-essential
all the extra stuff for the S4 camera, the custom modes etc

What ROM to use is basically a personal preference. Do you want bells & whistles? Do you want the lean basics? A little of both? The way I choose a ROM is just to read the thread about it. If it sounds good I'll try it. If I don't like it its easy to restore the backup I made in recovery and go back to rooted stock or whatever I was running before.

Yes, I think custom Roms are better than stock. Generally they are faster and smoother. A lot of them now have most of the bloat removed and give you an option to flash additional files with the extras if you want them.

As far as extra storage, no ROM is going to give you that right now. The system partition would have to be repartitioned and there isn't a way to do that yet.

I've been using the Darthstalker ROM. I like it a lot. I think it meets most of the requirements your looking for. Wicked is also a really good ROM. Its similar to Darthstalker with a little more customization.

Look through the All Things Root Guide sticky at the top of the page for links to the Roms. Have fun!

Hey, new S4 user here but not new to Android. I'm also trying to figure out which ROM I should try first... DarthStalker looked like it had some good changes, I also heard about CleanROM but I can't find that for the Galaxy S4.

I remember seeing cleanrom somewhere. It may be for another carrier. You can flash other carriers Roms (not the i9500) as long as you flash a Tmobile kernel at the same time you flash the ROM. Look down the forum a ways. There's a thread some where about flashing other phone's Roms.